MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/. Washington is pushing Kiev towards moving military actions to Russian territory, with nuclear blackmail coming into play, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address on Wednesday.
"In Washington, London, and Brussels, they are directly prodding Kiev to shift military actions to our territory, with statements openly being made that Russia should be defeated on the battlefield by all means and later deprived completely of its economic, political, cultural, or any other kind of sovereignty whatsoever," he said.
"Nuclear blackmail has also been unleashed," the president noted, adding that the issue is not only about the shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which risks a nuclear catastrophe, but also about statements made by certain high-ranking representatives of leading NATO states on the possibility and acceptability of using weapons of mass destruction, namely nuclear weapons against Russia.
"I would like to remind those resorting to such statements against Russia that our country also has various weapons of destruction, and some [of our] components are even more up-to-date than NATO member countries. And when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will obviously use all the means we have at our disposal to protect Russia and our people," he warned.
"This is not a bluff. Russian citizens can be confident that the territorial integrity of our homeland, and our independence and freedom will be ensured. And let me emphasize once again, we have all the means at our disposal," he concluded.